Pheasant hunting in March

Don Dziedzina with a couple pheasants harvested at Rooster Heaven Hunt Club. Wagers is on Don's left and Profit is on the Right.

My daughter Lisa owns two German Shorthaired Pointers, Wager and Profit. These dogs love to hunt.

Although the season is now closed for hunting wild birds, the other option is hunting at a private club. I'm a member at the Rooster Heaven Hunt Club in Forrest, IL and Lisa and I were there earlier this week.

Lisa doesn't hunt but being a dog trainer, she has trained her dogs in hunting as well as obedience and agility. She's competed in hunt tests with both dogs. But the real fun comes in with hunting for pheasants. It's something that I've done for about 35 years.

We've always had shortrhairs in our home. They're great hunters. I enjoy watching them work. Once one learns how to read his dog's body language, you can tell when the dog is getting close to a bird; "getting birdy" it's called. Then when the dog locks up on a bird and holds a strong and solid point, it's just the icing on the cake.

Their noses are good and you may doubt their points because you just can't see the bird. But you have to trust your dog and kick the weeds some to get a tightly hunkered down pheasant to bust.

Our dogs found four birds in just over an hour. I have a photo here of two that I took.

Private hunt clubs are great as they give you an extended hunting season. Good days like this one that Lisa and I had with the dogs makes it easy to say that "Great hunting is not that far away." tm

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Meet The Blogger

Don Dziedzina

Don Dziedzina of Illinois Outdoors Inc., has been involved in the outdoors industry for over 40 years.
Don has written columns for numerous outdoor magazines and many local newspapers. For a couple years he wrote outdoor columns for the Chicago Tribune in the Sports section. Today, his columns are published in MidWest Outdoors and Adventure Sports Outdoors Magazines. He also produces outdoor news columns here in ChicagoNow, a blog owned by the Chicago Tribune.
Over 19 years ago Don began producing and hosting the Illinois Outdoors TV show. It airs now on Comcast, Insight, and MediaCom Cable having a reach of nearly 7 million viewers.
About 9 years ago he was asked by Jim DaRosa to join the staff of the Fishing and Outdoor Radio Show as co-host. Since then Jim and Don host the show that airs every week, simulcast on WCSJ AM 1550, WCSJ FM 103.1, WSPY FM 107.1, WSPY AM 1480, WSQR FM 93.5 and WSQR AM 1180.
On the Illinois Outdoors TV Show, Don always says, “Great Fishing (or hunting) is not that far away.” tm On the radio show they say “We fish, we hunt, we live the outdoors.” tm